In recent years, the use of routers has become increasingly popular. A router is a networking device that forwards data packets from one computer network to another through the networks that comprise the Internet, until the data packets reach their destination. Routers are found in homes and offices and are typically used to pass data, such as email, IM, multimedia, and web pages, between a computer and the Internet. At home, a router may be in the form of a cable or digital subscriber line (DSL) router that connects to the Internet through an ISP. More advanced routers, such as enterprise routers, connect large business or ISP networks to core routers that forward data at advanced speeds.
Today, wireless routers are the heart of local Wi-Fi networks, allowing users to connect to the Internet at home with any wireless device, such as a laptop, tablet computer, smartphone, etc., when coupled with an internet service provider (ISP). A home wireless router is often included during the installation of Internet access by the user's internet service provider (ISP). Such routers are typically provisioned with a broadband interface that couples with a modem to communicate with an external network via a cable or DSL broadband channel.
However, when the broadband channel is severed or simply overloaded, conventional routers may not be able to provide continuous availability or quality of service (QoS) because there may not be an alternative broadband channel to use. More particularly, conventional routers that have a single broadband connection do not provide failover to or from a cellular network. Further, conventional routers do not provide load balancing of data flow over both a wired broadband connection and a cellular network. Still further, conventional routers may not adjust the type of external broadband connection based on the security sensitivity of the data to be routed. It is with respect to these considerations and others that the present disclosure has been written.